Mikala Glidewell
Mrs. Winkler period 4
3 November, 2014

leiningen and the ants

In the story Leiningen and the Ants, Leiningen has shown himself as a over confident person. Leiningen knew that the ants were very dangerous but he also knew that he can beat them. The first sign of Leiningen's confidence is that he says " Decent of you, paddling all this way just to give me the tip. But you're pulling my leg of course when you say I must do abunk why. even a herd of saurians couldn't drive me from this plantation of mine. A second sign of his confidence is when he said "And don't think i'm the kind of fathead who tries to fend lightning off with my fists, either i use my intelligence, old man. with me, the brain isn't a second blind gut, i know what it's there for. When i began his model farm and plantation three years ago, I toook into account all that could conceivably happen to it. And now i'm ready for anything and everything including your ants. These two statements show that Leiningen is headed for the worst aslo shown himself to be a very pesuasive person, to make others think he is the opposite of what he is.

So on with the story Leiningen saw a large swarm of ants eating their way through the jungle as an unstoppable force consuming everything in their path Leiningen refuses to yield like his neighbors. Leiningen's neighbors said " i tell you if you don't clear out at once there'll be nothing left of you but a skeleton picked as clean as your own plantation." The plantation workers are frightened, Leiningen offers them fully pay and allows them to leave. But the boss is such a force of nature himself that some workers stay behind to implement Leiningen's formidable battle plans to defeat the ants. all seems lost, the leiningen realizes that he could breach a dam, two miley away. while that will flood his plantation and destroy the crops, the people will live.

Despite the ferocity of the ants, Leiningen determines to wrap himself in petroleum rags and run two miles through the ants to get to the dam and breach it. On his way back he recalls witnessing the ants once pick downed stag clean to the "white bones" and he waited for the right time to kill the ants. The ants finally appeared in the dam so